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Headcanons (Spoilers, duh)

I don't think I have seen a thread like this so far (only about headcanons for very specific topics), so let's do this.

First of all, let me explain what a headcanon actually is, for all you folks who's brains have not have been implanted with internet parasites like mine has.

Not a headcanon:

Source: xkcd

Headcanon:


Aight? Aight.

So here are some of my headcanons.
I have mentioned some of these before in other threads, but as as said above, I like having a thread for all of them.
Uh, also a warning, a lot of these are about genetics and sex/conceiving :V

1. Half-elves/ Half-orcs are about as fertile as most hybrid animals (i.e. mules, ligers, etc.) meaning they are under most circumstances they are sterile (magic means can help against this, of course). This opens to a few interesting roleplaying possibilities where for example the parents object to their kid marrying a half-elf because they wouldn't have grandchildren or about a promiscuous half-orcs making for ideal prostitutes because they can't get preggers/ can't get their clients preggers. (This topic was discussed in detail in this thread, if you are interested.)

2. Elves can only conceive if they share a soul-bond with their partner. This one is inspired by the comic series ElfQuest. There are of course magic workarounds, but most elves will only fall in love with someone they have a sould-bond with anyway. This is the reason to why Toril is not completely overrun by elves even though they probably spend a lot of time in their long lives with getting it on. The notable exception to this are drow, who have evolved so far away from the elven ways, that they conceive like most other humanoids (their self-destructive ways keep their numbers in check).

3.1 Bhaalspawn only inherit genes from their mothers. The idea is that Bhaal only gave part of his soul (you know the thing they call the 'taint' and 'instinct' in the game). I just can't picture Bhaal as being creative enough to come up with a completely distinguished body for every person he impregnated, so instead the changing was just cosmetical to assure body compatibilty. This is to explain as to why the different Bhaalspawn can share little to no similarities to each other or Bhaal. (I got the idea when reasearching the above mentioned half-elf fertility thing >.>)
I like this idea so much, because this way CHARNAME will automatically bear an uncanny resemblance to their mother, which ads an extra angle (especially to female CHARNAME). Imagine Gorion's growing grief over seeing his beloved child more and more turning into the spitting image of his former lover and later in ToB Charname seing their mother for the first time and their shock of them looking like twins. Yay, drama!

3.2 Alternatively, Bhaal may have borrowed other people's bodies via possession to get the deed done. Which could actually lead to certain Bhaalspawn also being actual siblings on a genetical level. Think Bhaal possessing one of his male priests to shag all the female ones in the same temple. Oh, the chaffing :smirk:

4. Halflings are hobbits. I don't like it that with every re-working of the system/ setting halflings move further and further away from their original form, which are the good ol' inhabitants of the Shire. If it hadn't been for the Tolkien Company (?) sueing TSR back when, they would probably still be hobbits to this day. So what does that mean? Halflings tend to be chubby (thanks to their eating habits), have large hairy feet, almost never wear shoes, can have any natural hair colour (not just black like for Lightfoot Halflings) and usually have curly hair. Oh yeah, that also means that Halflings don't have a natural affinity to be rogues, most will take a good book and a cup of tea in their living room over wandering and exploring any day.

5. Accents/ dialects, architechture and fashion based on this list. And then some. I personally like to immagine the city of Baldur's Gate with a strong dutch vibe, for example. Of course the languages are pre-determined, but people would have an accent based on what ever real world country/ region fits the best. Takes away a lot of the homogeny the Realms tend to have and just makes it a bit more lively. Plus, accents are fun!

6. Mulhorand, Unther and what-not are not populated by descendants of real world people. So apparently the lore states that at one point a portal between the real world - our world - and Toril was opened and a bunch of anciant Egyptians came through and made their home on Faerûn. Stuff like this is why FR also shares some religious stuff with our world, effectively implying that Tyr, Horus and co. are real gods, which annoys my inner atheist and hurts my immersion in the setting. It's dumb and I hate it. I prefer my settings to either be exclusively fantasy or fantasy adaptations of ther real world. Not some wishy-washy in between.

Well, I probably forgot some, but here you go.
Please post your own headcanons and discuss! BG, IWD, general FR, you go for it.
Always love adding up/ refining my own headcanons.
SkatanDJKajuruMirandelMoradinTroodon80dunbarCrevsDaaksemiticgoddesskcwisebrus
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Comments

  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    effectively implying that Tyr, Horus and co. are real gods, which annoys my inner atheist and hurts my immersion in the setting
    I believe they're are widely viewed as "entities, powerful enough to be considered gods", rather than modern religions' concept of overdeity, so it's doesn't really have to do with atheism. Fourth wall breaking, though, quite likely.
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    Ardanis said:

    I believe they're are widely viewed as "entities, powerful enough to be considered gods", rather than modern religions' concept of overdeity, so it's doesn't really have to do with atheism.

    Atheism is about not believing in anything supernatural, not about being specifically anti-monotheistic.
    My statement has everything to do with atheism.
    And let's not forget that Norse paganism is going through a revival, so Tyr is technically one of "the modern gods" as well.
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    edited January 2017
    I totally call them hobbits as well :)

    MAGIC IS A LOT HARDER TO FIND
    As magical as faerun can be, I treat mages and clerics as uncanny individuals who have mastered something that very few can , which is either true faith or the will to shape realdity.

    DRAGONS AND ELVES CAN'T DIE OF OLD AGE
    They are both legendary beings , after all.

    THERE ARE VERY FEW CHARACTERS ABOVE LEVEL 5

    This one is actually true for ad&d, and it makes the whole world more interesting as it considers level six and above to be actually heroic /villanous and levels above 10 to be legendary.
    ButtercheeseSkatan
  • Troodon80Troodon80 Member, Developer Posts: 4,110
    Skatan said:

    I don't have that much headcanon, but here's some for starters:

    Dwarves are not as short as usually depicted.
    I like to picture them as dwarves being taller than gnomes being taller than halflings

    Just to point out, as per the averages in the second edition books, that's accurate anyway.

    Here's the basic table per the base values and maximum values (modifiers):
    Race Height (Male) Height (Female)
    Dwarf 43-53 (1.09m – 1.35m) 41-51 (1.04m – 1.30m)
    Elf 55-65 (1.40m – 1.65m) 50-60 (1.27m – 1.52m)
    Gnome 38-44 (0.97m – 1.12m) 36-42 (0.91m – 1.07m)
    Half-elf 60-72 (1.52m – 1.83m) 58-70 (1.47m – 1.78m)
    Halfling 32-48 (0.81m – 1.22m) 30-46 (0.76m – 1.17m)
    Human 60-80 (1.52m – 2.03m) 59-79 (1.50m – 2.00m)
    The top of tall dwarf's head could easily come up to a short human's shoulders. Similarly, a tall halfling would be about chest height compared to a short human (and should easily be able to backstab). There's quite a considerable margin. A short halfling would be almost half the height of a short human, and probably only knee height compared to a tall human. It's not so much headcannon as much as it is in-universe reality, but it depends on the heights being compared (and it's not something that can be shown in the Infinity Engine). :-)

    lolienButtercheesesemiticgoddessSkatan
  • EnialusMeliamneEnialusMeliamne Member Posts: 399
    For me, any quest that has an item specific to a person which requires an entry into a locked home (I'm looking at you, Joseph's Greenstone Ring), I head canon it as the quest being given by a billboard in the local inn. I apply the same thing for the diamond in the tree in the ambush site, as well as Evermemory outside of FAI. Specific to the greenstone ring, Imoen initiates dialogue after B&E, while CHARNAME and the rest of the gang hang outside. I hand wave away the dialogue not matching the head canon.

    I've recently started CLUA'ing in a bag of holding into every play through, because of the convenience factor. I head canon that Gorion gives it to CHARNAME as a parting gift. If I'm playing a learned character (bard, mage...), they keep a single copy of every book in-game that they run across. Any Paladin CHARNAME's will pickup weaponry of any sort laying around in inhabited or well traveled areas. They'll sell them off at merchants, thus doing what they can to limit bandits being able to add further weaponry into their caches.

    lolienDJKajuruButtercheeseSkatan
  • dunbardunbar Member Posts: 1,603
    Totally agree about Hobbits.

    There are weirder things on this planet than in any of the Forgotten Realms.

    Magic is all around us, everyday.

    So my headcanon is effectively that the FR and our world are diverged parallel universes.
  • DrakeICNDrakeICN Member Posts: 623
    Uh, yes, but...

    (Megaspoiler)

    Isnt the Gorion loved CHARNAME:s mum just a cover story Gorion spoonfed CHARNAME? In reality, Gorion and friends, probably Winthrop and some harpers (and the Friendly Arms inn owners?) (but obviously not Khaild and Jaheira, or if they were there they can REALLY keep a secret) raided a Bhaal Temple, probably the Friendly Arms inn, due to its proximity to where Imoen, CHARNAME and Sarevok grew up, and killed some cultists right before they sacrificed their newborn. But they were chased away by reinforcements and Gorion and Winthrop each grabbed an infant before running out of there. After meeting with Elminster and some other harpers, Gorion agreed to raise CHARNAME as a happy child, for the very purpose of creating a Bhaalspawn that hopefully was harper friendly, to have their own player in the Bhaal-games to come? In actuality CHARNAME:s mother was also a crased cultist that willingly had intercourse with the slayer. And also, Saravok was lying on the sacrificial altar next to you, and Gorion grabbed you and not him by chance.
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    @DrakeICN
    I don't remember the part where Gorion's story is specifically debunked, I always assumed that they used to be part of the same adventuring party when they where young, had a thing going/ Gorion was crushing on her and then at some point she converted to become a follower of Bhaal/ always has been a follower of Bhaal but had kept it a secret.

    Also, where is it mentioned that Sarevok was laying on the altar next to CHARNAME? In the flashback scene in the pocket plane, Sarevok is shown as a child who can already talk, so unless that scene was faked, Sarevok is a few years older than CHARNAME (how else would he had managed to flee the temple alone).

    And last but not least, I am pretty sure it is mentioned at some point that Imoen came to Candlekeep a few years after CHARNAME did (I believe to remember it was about ten years after, but don't quote me on that; that would mean Winthrop took her in during the Time of Troubles). It is highly unlikely she came from the same temple as Sarevok and CHARNAME. I don't think it is ever mentioned what Imoen's background is, she might not have come from a Bhaal temple at all (which I believe much more likely).

    I also doubt Winthrop ever was an adventurer, the Harpers probably just brought in Imoen and she prefered staying with him instead of Gorion, so she moved in with ol' puffguts.
    lolien
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    edited January 2017
    Bhaal is not a deity of murder, but a toilet god who just had a bad case of diarrhea.

    The narrator of the whole Bauldur's Gate saga is in fact Schlumpsha the Sewer King. This hypothesis is supported due to the deep insights given when CHARNAME meets this oozey genderless gentleman.

    Imoen is a fragment of CHARNAME's imagination, who slowly but surely goes batshit insane due to the lack of public bathing facilities.

    Aerie's wings were sold and ended up in High Hedge, where Melicamp used them as a spell compount. Ultimatively becoming a poultry like all avariels.

    The Forgotten Realms are called forgotten realms because its people are just terrible at remembering things. Whenever they take three steps they're bound to forget something.

    The whole human population died out long ago and were replaced with doppelgangers. Hostile doppelgangers encountered within the game are just extreme nutcases who hate to wear clothings.

    Goblins are the true inventors of steampunkish artefacts. The gnomes have just stolen it from them.

    Kobolds are not related to dragons at all. Neither they are reptilian humanoids. In fact they are primitive skavens which came to Abeir-Toril through a Chaos Gate.

    The whole Wall of the Faithless does not exist and is just a way for the various churches and temples to controll the clueless masses.

    Psionic does not equal magic. Thus mindflayers & Co. are not mages, period!

    Paladin is pronounced as pale-a-bean. Needless to say it is a subclass of saucier.
    DJKajurulolienMantis37KidCarnival
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356

    I don't remember the part where Gorion's story is specifically debunked ...

    You may not remember it, but nevertheless it's there. Gorion's original account is debunked (by retcon) in the ToB flashback scene.

    @DrakeICN has added a lot of details not covered in-game (but hey, this is a head-canon thread), but his main point is genuine canon, and also Sarevok does clearly imply that he was there (as one of the other kids who had been about to be sacrificed) when Gorion's party raided the Bhaalist Temple. We know nothing official about Imoen's background, however, nor which particular Temple was raided by Gorion, nor the various other details which are simply personal head-canon.
    ThacoBell
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    @Gallowglass
    Am I missing something? At what point is it retconned?
    Or are you saying that Gorion can't have been in love with CHARNAME's mom because she was evil? Because alignmentshift is a thing and when you are wearing rose-tinted glasses all the red flags are just flags.
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    edited January 2017
    Gorion's letter in BG1 tells a tale about the love he and your mother had shared, but during one of the ToB challenges in Pocket Plane her spirit reveals she was in fact a head priestess of a Bhaal's temple that was raided by Gorion and his friends. Gorion's spirit iirc is present there as well and adds that she was about to stab you with a ritual dagger when they arrived. I.e. per ToB they never adventured together, and tried to kill each other on the first sight, Gorion having been faster.

    It's not explicitly confirmed that Arianna spoke the truth either, so fanbase has kinda split over it, some accepting ToB narrative and others going with headcanon based on Gorion's letter.
    ThacoBell
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    But her being the head priestess doesn't mean that Gorion can't have been in love with her ._.
    Like I said, either her becoming a priestess could have happened after their shared travels or she simply kept it a secret.
    It's not a contradiction, that's my point.
    DJKajuru
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    edited January 2017
    Well, it's been many years since I played ToB, so I don't remember the exact exchange. It definitely gave me the impression that Gorion had been lying in his letter about Arianna's circumstances, though. Not that he had a lot of choice, I guess... "You see, Charname, your mom was evil to the core and I killed her" - not exactly a thing you'd want to tell your foster child :D
    semiticgoddessGallowglassThacoBell
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356

    Am I missing something? At what point is it retconned?

    It has been retconned twice.

    First, there's no suggestion in the ToB scene that Gorion ever knew his ward's mother at all, she was simply a random priestess of Bhaal in the Temple which he raided to free the sacrificial children. For many years, the natural inference was therefore that Gorion's story about being her lover (combined with the mundane background attributed to her in some of the BG1 protagonist biographies, such as being a caravan guard) was merely a story made up by Gorion to spare his ward from the unpleasant truth.

    Secondly, it has now been re-retconned in SoD, with the blind priestess Madele's explanation that Gorion (or at least, an unnamed "Harper spy", whom we're presumably intended to guess was Gorion) and the Bhaalist priestess did know one another after all - apparently they had been meeting in secret, and he (allegedly) hoped through love to persuade her not to sacrifice the children. Madele also implies (although ambiguously) that the particular Temple raided by Gorion was the same one in which we find her.

    So now it's been retconned back to be somewhat closer to the BG1 explanation, but until SoD there was no indication that Gorion's original account was anything more than a story. (Actually the new retcon seems to me quite ingenious, one of the better sections of SoD's writing.)
    ThacoBell
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    A retcon means that there is a contradiction and/or it had to have been outright stated otherwise.
    No mentioning again doesn't mean it didn't happen.
    Ardanis said:

    not exactly a thing you'd want to tell your foster child :D

    Okay, point, I know first hand that adults love keeping crucial information like this from children.
    Buuuut unless something is confirmed it's not canon :V Also, the letter was clearly for adult CHARNAME, I doubt Gorion would outright lie to them in his last words, especially since he knew what was at stake.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356

    A retcon means that there is a contradiction and/or it had to have been outright stated otherwise.
    No mentioning again doesn't mean it didn't happen.

    Ardanis said:

    not exactly a thing you'd want to tell your foster child :D

    Okay, point, I know first hand that adults love keeping crucial information like this from children.
    Buuuut unless something is confirmed it's not canon :V Also, the letter was clearly for adult CHARNAME, I doubt Gorion would outright lie to them in his last words, especially since he knew what was at stake.
    There was a pretty clear implication that Gorion's BG1 letter was outright false, and certainty that it was at least highly misleading. IMO, that's enough to call it a retcon, even if it wasn't utterly unambiguous.
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    Also, the letter was clearly for adult CHARNAME, I doubt Gorion would outright lie to them in his last words, especially since he knew what was at stake.

    Actually he might have kept it secret exactly due to what was at stake, out of worry that ugly truth revealed at dramatic moment may push Charname a step closer to become what Gorion had dedicated the remainder of his life to prevent. Possibly a part of Harpers' plot, as such trickery easily fits my image of them meddling everywhere they do not belong.
    GallowglassThacoBell
  • ButtercheeseButtercheese Member Posts: 3,766
    edited January 2017
    Well, I am not even remotely convinced, but since no one is bringing any hard evidence to the table I shall simply pay extra close attention on my next playthrough :V

    Moving on.
    Post edited by Buttercheese on
    GallowglassTroodon80lolien
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    Troodon80 said:


    Here's the basic table per the base values and maximum values (modifiers):
    Race Height (Male) Height (Female)
    Dwarf 43-53 (1.09m – 1.35m) 41-51 (1.04m – 1.30m)
    Elf 55-65 (1.40m – 1.65m) 50-60 (1.27m – 1.52m)
    Gnome 38-44 (0.97m – 1.12m) 36-42 (0.91m – 1.07m)
    Half-elf 60-72 (1.52m – 1.83m) 58-70 (1.47m – 1.78m)
    Halfling 32-48 (0.81m – 1.22m) 30-46 (0.76m – 1.17m)
    Human 60-80 (1.52m – 2.03m) 59-79 (1.50m – 2.00m)
    The top of tall dwarf's head could easily come up to a short human's shoulders. Similarly, a tall halfling would be about chest height compared to a short human (and should easily be able to backstab). There's quite a considerable margin. A short halfling would be almost half the height of a short human, and probably only knee height compared to a tall human. It's not so much headcannon as much as it is in-universe reality, but it depends on the heights being compared (and it's not something that can be shown in the Infinity Engine). :-)

    Thanks, but I would very rarely envision a human being 1,52 meters, rather I use the current average of (northern) europe in my headcanon where most males are between 1,75-1,85 and the females about a 0,1 less. This means my version of dwarves are not 1,35 on average, they are more like 1,50 and no dwarves are ever 1,09. Not even halflings are that tiny in my head.
    As I mentioned, anything coming at you with the body mass of a six year old human child can NEVER be fearsome. Not even with magic.
    So if a dwarf is 1,5, a gnome is only slightly smaller at 1,3 or so, and a halfling roughly the same (also, a halfling is not a half human in height but in body mass :)), at 1,2. I am aware the higher brackets in your schema is close to my values for gnomes and halflings, however, the lower brackets of the official heights, and thus the average, makes the average person from these races too tiny to make it work in my head.
    It just doesn't work, it breaks any immersion and what I like to call "fantastical reality", meaning that even though there is magic there still have to be at least somewhat realistic compared to physical facts of the real world (I mean the one we live in). Example, gravity is the same in the material place as on Earth, strenght and the ability to jump etc is fairly the same, so that also means the way races develop muscle density etc should be the same. So for a halfling being 0,9 meters and still being able to have 18:++ in STR makes little sense. By increasing every races' body mass in my head I try to make such discrepancies smaller (albeit not completely disappear,
    cause magic).

    So no, my depiction is not really in line with the in-universe reality since I envision all the shorty races to have an average height of around 0,2-3 more than the official.
    Troodon80lolien
  • former_customerformer_customer Member Posts: 111
    Skatan said:


    As I mentioned, anything coming at you with the body mass of a six year old human child can NEVER be fearsome.

    Hey, there were a couple wolverines outside who wanted to talk to you. They seemed kinda pissed.
    lolienThacoBellNimranGallowglass
  • DrakeICNDrakeICN Member Posts: 623
    edited January 2017
    Ardanis said:

    Also, the letter was clearly for adult CHARNAME, I doubt Gorion would outright lie to them in his last words, especially since he knew what was at stake.

    Actually he might have kept it secret exactly due to what was at stake, out of worry that ugly truth revealed at dramatic moment may push Charname a step closer to become what Gorion had dedicated the remainder of his life to prevent. Possibly a part of Harpers' plot, as such trickery easily fits my image of them meddling everywhere they do not belong.
    He did not plan on dying.

    "Don't worry child, I'll explain everything as soon as there is time."

    But there was no time. Considering Gorions personality, I am quite sure he would have broken it down in tidbits and planted them carefully over time. And I am not so sure he would have ever told the truth-truth. He would probably stick with the lovers story, claiming the slayer forced himself upon his wards mother, but that he none-the-less still loved her, and that she died in childbirth.

    Edit: In fact, if they had been lovers (havent played SoD yet, still waiting for android) thatvis probably the story he told himself. Why would his love interest chose a spiked, soulles tentacle monster over him otherwise?
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    Why would his love interest chose a spiked, soulles tentacle monster over him otherwise?

    Why indeed :D
    former_customerNimranButtercheese
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    edited January 2017
    Re: Gorion not knowing Charname's mother from Adam.

    In TOB when you are confronted by mother's ghost, Sarevok turns up and says,

    "He chose you not me but I was there too" (paraphrased).

    The implication is that there was no reason for whom Gorion chose, it's down to luck. Or in Sarevok's case, bad luck, and he's upset about it.

    "Gorion's Ward" is mentioned in the prophecies.
    The actual child was never important, any child taken and given that title would fulfil the prophecy (it's a title not a name or discription).
    Which is why Sarevok feels hard done by, it literally could have been him.
    Which is then emphasised by the question the Solar then asks.

    Bit of a hard thing to lay on a person without the distinct possibility they go apeshit and start screaming "I am not a number".
    So Gorion lied.
    Gallowglassformer_customer
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,456
    edited January 2017
    Headcanon: Gnomes are fey. I think that them being fey is the most interesting thing WotC has ever done with the race and them retconning them every single edition is annoying so I'm going to pick one rendition of them and stick with it. The Fey-themed Gnomes in Pathfinder and 4e are my favorite so going to choose that one to make headcanon.
    Post edited by Vallmyr on
    ButtercheeseredlineWarChiefZekeDJKajuru
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    yeah, gnomes being fey explains so much of their quirky and chaotic nature. good explanation and finally sets them apart from halfling and dwarves in some concrete way
    VallmyrDJKajuru
  • DrakeICNDrakeICN Member Posts: 623
    If we first agree that blaming the devs for missing up the timeline is off the table, then I think we can safely assume Arianna has messed up the timeline - if I remember correctly, the pocket plane puts the witnesses under some kind of magical oath, so she MUST speak the truth. Thus, there are three possibilities:
    1. Gorions Ward is 10 years old... which cannot be. So scratch that one
    2. Arianna spoke unclearly, or meant something different when she says "When our great Bhaal died". Maybe he lost some of his power or whatever, who knows?
    3. Arianna, being isolated by other more militant followers, had been wrongly informed about the timing of death of her lord - perhaps precisely because harpers were just about to storm the stronghold, and as Madele points out, they KNEW about the harper spy - thus, she is telling the "truth" as SHE believes it to be. So the militants were like "Fuck it, we have to kill the babies now!" and the priestesses were like "NO! We were to wait until our great lord kicks the bucket! and the militants were like "Uhhh... havent you heard? He suffered a stroke yesterday!"

    Personally, alternative 3 is my favorite.

    Also, Imoen can be resurrected and she is a Bhaalspawn. But then again, she never accepted it, she never wanted it. She rejects Bhaal with all her heart, so maybe she is somehow therefore immune to getting dragged to the Throne. Also, I do not think souls get stuck in the Throne. I think their essence is stripped, and then they are as free as any other soul - which is why Gorions Wards pocket plane can summon Sarevok, among other dead Bhaal Spawns.
    Buttercheese
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